Voices of Dragons (4 page)

Kay didn't know why she should be so nervous. She was going to the dance with a friend. That was all.

When Jon came to pick her up, her parents insisted on making them pose for pictures. Like that wasn't embarrassing. She couldn't complain—most of the time, they let her alone, didn't pry too much, didn't harass her. She could sneak out without drawing too much attention. Not this time.

But she had to admit, Jon looked good. She'd never seen him in a suit and tie before. He looked slick. Very Hollywood, Tam would say. Or Secret Service. Kay thought it was mostly because he managed not to slouch. She still had to think about it.

“Why don't you two stand over here, under the tree?”
Dad said, camera in one hand, gesturing them over with the other.

“It's getting too dark out,” Mom argued. “I think we should do this inside. Or at least on the porch, where there's more light.”

Dad smirked. “We can do both. You two mind?”

Kay mostly wanted to hurry up and leave. But she wasn't going to ruin her parents' fun by arguing. They seemed happy. They beamed at her, eyes shining. Tearing up? Her tough cop parents tearing up? All she'd done was put on a nice dress.

Jon was smiling; he didn't seem to mind. Finally, Kay realized she'd have to put her foot down or her parents would take pictures all night.

“We really need to get going. We're supposed to be meeting Tam and Carson,” she said hopefully.

“Oh, gosh, I didn't realize how late it is,” Mom said, glancing at her watch. “Of course you should get going. Have fun.” Kay hugged her mother, then her father.

He said, “Kay, back by midnight, right?”

“Right.”

Then she and Jon piled into his car. Jon was chuckling.

“What?” she asked.

“When your dad's the sheriff and he says be home by midnight, you don't have a choice, do you? He could send the cops after you.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Do you think he'd really do that?”

Kay's father had pulled her over for speeding once. That was all it had taken.

She said, “I think we'd better plan on being back by midnight.”

 

If you wanted to go to a dance with a friend, there had to be an easier way.

The gym had been done up with a ton of streamers and balloons. A disco ball had been temporarily suspended from the ceiling. It still looked—and smelled—like the gym. The football team had won the game earlier that day and were acting rowdy, screaming at one another, mostly incomprehensible phrases, except for an occasional “Saints!” Now that Kay thought about it, calling the closest high school to Dragon the Saint Georges struck her as being kind of rude. The football players' girlfriends stood to the side, pouting and looking embarrassed at the team's rowdiness, a few people danced to recorded music, and lots of others stood to the sides, sipping fruit punch from paper cups and nibbling on cookies. Like any other school dance. While lots of people managed to look nice in their new dresses and suits, many others looked exactly what they were: uncomfortable.

On the other hand, this was about as fancy as Silver River ever got.

Kay and Jon leaned against a wall and watched the drama.

Jon pointed to where Principal Reid, who always wore
pressed dress suits in dark, respectable colors, even while chaperoning a dance, was tapping Carson on the shoulder. Carson and Tam stopped making out on the dance floor. It was the third time Reid had split them up. They returned to dancing in the acceptable manner: her arms across his shoulders, his hands on her hips, six inches between them. Reid had been known to measure with a ruler.

They'd been making out during one of the
fast
songs.

“I give them ten more minutes before they get stopped again,” Jon said. “Or before Reid kicks them out.”

Kay grinned. “If she hasn't yet, she's not going to.”

“They'll just find some place where no one'll bother them,” Jon said.

When a group of them went out for a movie or a game or to hang out, that's how a lot of the evenings ended up: with Tam and Carson going someplace where no one would bother them. They were kind of famous for it.

Jon called it exactly. Ten minutes later, when the next slow song came up, Tam and Carson were at it again. Reid marched toward them, but before she reached them, Carson took Tam's hand, and they ran off the dance floor and out the door together.

“They didn't even say good-bye,” Kay said. Never mind. Kay would hear all about it tomorrow or Monday, how they'd parked at a trailhead outside of town or sneaked into Carson's attic. The attic actually stored an old bed that they used, but then they had to be quiet, and how hard
was that when Carson was just
so hot
.

Reid had other targets by this time. Chaperones watched the dancing couples like hawks during the slow songs. The scene made Kay nervous. She didn't know whether she was relieved to be outside that whole game or sad that she was missing out on something. Jon hadn't asked her to dance a slow song yet. She half hoped that he would, but was glad that he hadn't. The whole evening was confusing her.

By ten o'clock it was clear one of the football players had smuggled in some kind of alcohol and was passing a flask among his friends, because the team got more rowdy, the girlfriends got giggly, and the smell of it was starting to seep in among the smells of sugar from punch and cake and sweat from the gym. More people were dancing, the talking got louder, the music got louder, and the faculty chaperones were looking resigned. At least the punch hadn't been spiked. Her parents would just love her coming home drunk and wouldn't take “It's not my fault” as an excuse.

About that time Jon rested a hand on her shoulder. “You want to go outside and get some air?”

She nodded, and they slipped through the gym door to the parking lot, after retrieving their coats from the coatrack.

They just walked, following the sidewalk around the school, even though Kay's strappy high heels weren't great for walking, and her feet were cold. As long as she kept moving, she'd be okay. They walked shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the sky, the stars. The air was cold enough
that their breath fogged. Kay's ears tingled with cold. She hugged her coat tightly around her.

“Are you okay?” he said, after they'd walked the length of the sidewalk in silence.

“Yeah, I'm fine. It's so beautiful out.” On clear nights like this, the sky was black, rich and depthless, and millions of stars sparkled.

They turned the next corner; she couldn't help but look out past the football field and highway to the forest beyond, and to the mountains in the distance that marked dragon territory. She thought of Artegal, wondered where he was and how hard he had to work to keep from telling anyone about them. She wondered if any of his people suspected.

There seemed to be a glow among those far mountains, almost like a touch of sunset, but it was north instead of west. It seemed to flicker, orange and yellow, like a distant campfire.

Jon looked to where she stared. “Is it the northern lights?”

On clear nights, or when the aurora was particularly strong, the northern lights were visible in Silver River. But she shook her head. The glow was too red and too close to the horizon to be the aurora. Visible among the hills, shadows moved, dipping in and out of the light in graceful figures, visible in brief flashes.

“It's them,” she said.

A few times a year, the dragons grew active, and their
skies lit up. People assumed it was their fires reflecting off the mountains. No one knew for sure, and no one knew why. Nothing ever came of the nights of fire. No attacks, no demands, nothing to tell if the dragons were angry. Maybe they had their own festivals, their own holidays. Like Christmas. Because no one had a good explanation for it, it was probably one of the reasons people had stayed jumpy about dragons, even after all this time.

The activity was well within dragon territory, so the human authorities couldn't do anything about it. Kay imagined how many dragons were needed to make the mountains glow like that.

Shivering suddenly, she wrapped her arm around Jon's for warmth. He didn't pull away. They walked on.

It felt almost like dancing, this walking arm in arm. She felt warmer. Wasn't sure it was all from him.

After a dozen steps, he looked at her and said, “Does this mean you want to be more than just friends?”

A few more steps. She had to think. This was Jon, her climbing buddy, her friend. It was hard thinking of him outside of that. She wasn't sure she wanted to be one of those figures Principal Reid accosted on the dance floor. She wasn't sure if that was really what being boyfriend and girlfriend meant. This was all way too much to explain to Jon right now.

“I don't know. Is it okay if I don't know?”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I think I know how you
feel.” He gave her arm a squeeze.

Arm in arm, they went back to his car.

 

Kay groaned when she saw the light on in the living room. Mom or Dad or both were waiting up for her.

“It's not midnight yet, I know it isn't,” Jon said, looking at the clock in the dash in a panic. It read 11:30.

“No, it's not. They're just being uptight.”

“You're sure it's okay? You're not going to get in trouble?”

“No. They said midnight, they meant it.” She gathered her coat around her and paused before she opened the door. “Thanks, Jon. Thanks for bugging me until I said yes. I had a good time.” She did have a good time; maybe the best part was just walking with Jon outside, watching the stars.

“Good. I'm glad.” His smile glowed. He really was glad. “Maybe we should do it again sometime.”

“Maybe we should.” This sounded serious. She considered: Was she reluctant to say yes because she was scared? Was that all?

Maybe that was what made her lean forward and kiss him, just a light press on the side of his lips, before she could scare herself out of it. He blinked at her, mouth open, startled. His hand touched hers.

“Bye,” she said, and scrambled out of the car before he could say anything. She ran to the front door, but looked back once. He was watching her through the windshield. Quickly,
she went inside and closed the door. She stood there, listening, until she heard his car start and drive away.

Behind her, a newspaper rustled. Her father, sitting on the sofa in the living room, set aside his reading.

“Hi,” he said.

She smoothed out her coat, trying not to be self-conscious, and wondered if she was in trouble after all. Maybe her father had set his clock fifteen minutes ahead, just to be sneaky. “You didn't have to wait up for me.”

He shrugged. “I know. I just wanted to make sure you had a good time. Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of the coat and sat on the edge of the armchair across from him. “We saw lights. It looked like fires in the mountains over the border.”

“Hmm. That's the third time this year.”

“You keep track?”

He smiled. “It's hard not to. We get probably a hundred 911 calls about it the nights it happens.”

“But there's nothing you can do about it,” she said.

“We tell people we're monitoring the situation. If telling us about it makes them feel better, well, I can't argue, can I?”

“It's weird. It feels like they're watching us.”

“I'm sure they are watching us,” he said. “They'd be stupid not to. And I don't think they're stupid.”

They're not, she almost said. They read. They make art.
They could talk to us, if they wanted to. She pursed her lips, trying to find the right way to ask—without letting on about her secret.

“We do the drills, the jets patrol—is it because we really think they're going to attack?” If most of the dragons were like Artegal, she didn't believe they would.

“It's hard to say. We just don't know enough about them.”

“Do you think there'll ever be another war with them?” What had been banter in the hall at school had become an appalling idea.

“I hope not. The way I see it, my job's keeping the peace. The more peaceful it is, the better I look.” He grinned.

She must have been staring off into space, frowning and thoughtful, because her father said, “You're not worried about the dragons, are you?”

Yes.
At least, she worried about one dragon…. “No,” she said quickly. “Not any more than usual.” She tried to figure out how to change the subject. Her father did it for her.

“You're sure you had a good time? You seem a little down.”

“Oh no, I was just thinking.” He gave her a questioning look, prompting more detail. She'd be better off calling it a night and running away to her room. She took a deep breath and said, “How did you know? You and Mom, I mean. How did you know you wanted to be together?”

He leaned back against the sofa, glancing at the ceiling. Avoiding the question, she thought. He'd say something trite and tell her to go to bed.

She was surprised when he shook his head. “I don't know. It's not something I can put into words. We just knew. Well,
I
knew. She took a little persuading.” His smile turned wry.

Kay wondered what her mother would say if she asked her the same question. His answer didn't help much. It was the same thing Tam always said: It just felt right.

Kay just felt confused.

Her father said, “I like Jon. He's a good kid.”

She'd have to tell Jon that, so he could stop worrying about Sheriff Wyatt coming after him. Kay smirked and said, “So you want me to go out with him, too.”

“If you're ready. I don't want you to get involved if you don't want to.”

She sighed. “But how do I know if I'm ready?”

“Sorry, kid. Can't help you with that one.”